From
Bro. Tom Accuosti,
Very
Worshipful District Grand Lecturer, Connecticut,
USA.
A few years ago, a friend of mine got into
the habit of stopping by my house once a week to talk about his new interest in
Eastern esoterica and mysticism. A devoted practitioner of several meditative
disciplines, he liked to tell me about his new discoveries, insights, and
practices. Since I used to practice yoga, meditation and have had the
opportunity to study some of the lesser known aspects, he felt that he could talk
to me about what might be termed the spiritual aspects, knowing that I wouldn't
think it was too (forgive the technical term) "woo-woo."
One day we were chatting about something
and he asked me about a particular point, to which I answered that I didn't
remember much about it. He was surprised. "I figured with all the reading
you've done, you'd have some opinion on this. " He then confessed that he
thought it was odd that I didn't quote back to him some of the authors that I'd
read, or refer to some of the older, classical writings.
I explained that some years earlier I had
given away just about all of my books on Taoism and Zen, and hadn't been
inclined to pick up any more. He really didn't understand this, so I had to
explain to him what led to this decision. A long time ago I began picking up
books and literature and read almost incessantly on the writings of Lao-Tze,
Chang-tzu, and other authors with "z"s and dashes in their names. I
picked up old books - translations written in the 1800s and early 1900s - and I
picked up new books. I tracked down out-of-print books, the more esoteric, the
better. I meditated, I unblocked some of my chakras, and managed to contort
parts of my body into odd shapes, the better to allow the kundalini energy to
flow.
At some point, I realized that as much as I
studied and meditated, I was merely reading about Taoism, and not actually
practicing Taoism. In fact, the reading, the meditating - the constant
searching for meaning - was getting in my way. I gave away almost everything
that I had bought, keeping only my favourite Stephen Mitchell translation of
the Tao Teh Ching, and a couple of other older volumes. Instead of picking up
yet another book, I decided that my time would be better spent trying to live
up to all of the ideals that I had been reading about. If this were a Zen
parable, this is the point where I'd write "And at that instant, my friend
was enlightened." Unfortunately, that's not quite what happened; he
continued to argue with me, convinced that I was crazy. I'm sure there's some
ironic lesson in all this somewhere...
Anyhow, I'm writing this because the
essential point - that at some time you need to put down the books and work
with what you know - is not limited to Eastern philosophy. One of the great things
about Masonic blogging is the unexpected jewel that you happen across while
looking for something else. Earlier last week, I saw that MM over on North
Eastern Corner also came to a similar understanding. After mentioning the time
he had spent collecting all sorts of books about the fraternity, he writes:
"It has been my bad habit of buying
every book someone mentions on their blog or website for well over a year now
and I have come to a decision that it must stop.
"Not because I haven't gotten anything
from any of these publications, but
because recently I had an epiphany about books on Freemasonry and a
hammer. If you do an Amazon book search
for "hammer" you come up with 183,470 books associated with hammer as a subject or
somewhere in its title.
"I could read all 183,
470 books associated with the hammer and not even come close to what you learn
in just ten minutes using a hammer.
"
He gets it.
I wonder if this isn't part of the reason
that some Masons roll their eyes when somebody brings up the term "Masonic
Education." Our craft has inspired hundreds, nay, thousands of excellent
books and essays on the nature of the craft, morality, on what it means to be a
Mason, on the comparisons between Freemasonry and various other philosophies,
on the evolution of thought, on the importance of religion or spirituality, and
on just about any other subject that you can imagine being tangentially linked
to the craft. The excellent website Pietre-Stones itself has more fantastic
writing than the average Mason could read, the Philalathes Society has even
more, and anyone with access to Google can read about any aspect of Freemasonry
until their mouse finally drops from their nerveless grasp.
Here's a good question: Is there - or
should there be - a minimum requirement for some kind of Masonic Education? How
much of this should we, as Masons, be reading? Should all Masons be expected to
read Pike's "Morals & Dogma"? Should we all be handed, along with
our aprons, "A Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry for Dummies"?
Should our brethren have a mandatory subscription to "The Tao of
Masonry"?
In the last few years, I've read and heard
some people complain about the sad state of Masonic Education, and about the
dearth of great Masonic thinkers, and about the lack of modern books on
Masonry. My brothers are, naturally, entitled to their opinions. My own opinion
on that topic is that the internet has made available more excellent Masonic
information than any of our ancestors would have dreamed possible. My own education
on Masonry - the education that I have found to be the most valuable - came
less from books, and more from conversations with knowledgeable brothers in
person and in various online forums. Back when I joined, several of the
brothers told me that "the real Masonry happens after lodge." I
didn't understand what they meant for the first few months, but soon it became
obvious - we had relatively short business meetings and then went downstairs
for fellowship. Over coffee or whiskey (whichever a brother preferred, and
nobody was pushed into anything) we would talk about how the Grand Lodge works,
why a certain brother gets certain accommodations, talk about various aspects
of our ritual and ceremonies, learn why this or that lodge runs the way it does,
and dozens of other trivial-seeming topics that didn't start coming together
for me for almost a year.
Yes, I read a lot of books. I learned many
aspects about the history of our craft, the evolution of our ritual, and saw
how our symbols dovetail with symbols and teachings from long ago. But I also
learned why it was important to have Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi for WB Roger, and
to always make a few low-cholesterol dinners for WB Julian, and to have coffee
ready for WB Bob before and after the meeting, and . . .
Reading and acting. From which do you
suppose I learned more about Masonry?
The
above used with thanks to Bro. Tom Accuosti, Very Worshipful District Grand
Lecturer, Connecticut
http://masonictao.com/ , of Monday, January 14, 2008
